The call for help came into the fire station at 9:47 a.m., and when Azevedo arrived, “there was smoke pushing out of the roof line” of the 38-foot-by-40-foot garage.

“She had been cooking from the inside for a while,” he said of the blaze. “Pretty much everything in the garage was a total loss.”

The homeowner was able to move one vehicle out of the garage, but the flames prevented other vehicles from being saved, he said.

The cause of the fire has yet to be determined, Azevedo said. He said there was heavy fire damage in a corner of the garage in which a space heater was located, but it was not clear whether that was a factor.

The oil company is at the end of a long driveway, and that required running about 1,800 feet of hose, the chief said. The garage had propane and acetylene tanks inside that exploded when the flames grew close, he said. No injuries were reported.

Firefighters from Stetson, Levant, Hermon and Etna assisted Carmel crews, and others from Plymouth and Kenduskeag covered the empty stations.

“This is kind of as far from town as you can get,” Azevedo said, adding that Carmel firefighters have been busy in the last two weeks with five fires in the area.

The fire was so big, “you could see smoke from [Interstate] 395,” said Hudson paramedic Thomas Read. “It was a huge black plume.”